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Embedded with action and adventure, this thrilling tale daringly depicts the final journey of the ill-fated RMS Titanic. 84 years after the tragic event, a 101-year-old woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story to her granddaughter Lizzy Calvert, Brock Lovett, Lewis Bodine, Bobby Buell and Anatoly Mikailavich about how her life was impacted by her experience.
In April 10th 1912, on a ship called Titanic a vibrant, young Rose boards the departing ship with the upper-class passengers and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater, and her fiancé, Caledon Hockley.
Meanwhile, a drifter and artist named Jack Dawson and his best friend Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets to the ship in a game.
As she explains, the whole story unfolds from departure until the death of Titanic on its first and last voyage April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 in the morning.

Storyline

This exquisitely crafted epic opens in 1996, as treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel Keldysh search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a young woman wearing only the necklace. It is dated April 14, 1912, the day the ship struck the iceberg. Rose Dawson Calvert, claiming to be the person in the drawing, visits Lovett and tells of her experiences aboard the ship.

Discovered with Jack, Rose tells Cal that she was peering over the edge and Jack saved her from falling. Cal is indifferent, but when Rose indicates some recognition is due, he offers Jack a small amount of money. After Rose asks whether saving her life meant so little, he invites Jack to dine with them in first class the following night.

Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, though Cal and Ruth are wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third class. Aware of Cal and Ruth's disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jack's advances, but later realizes that she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her state room and displays Cal's engagement present: the Heart of the Ocean.

At her request, Jack sketches Rose posing nude wearing it. They evade Cal's bodyguard and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold. They later visit the forward deck, witnessing a collision with an iceberg and overhearing the officers and designer discussing its seriousness. Cal discovers Jack's sketch of Rose and a mocking note from her in his safe along with the necklace.

When Jack and Rose attempt to tell Cal of the collision, he has his butler slip the necklace into Jack's pocket and accuses him of theft. He is arrested, taken to the Master-at-arms' office, and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal puts the necklace in his own coat pocket. With the ship sinking, Rose is desperate to free Jack. She flees Cal and her mother, who has boarded a lifeboat, and rescues him.

They return to the boat deck, where Cal and Jack encourage her to board a lifeboat; Cal claims he can get himself and Jack off safely. After Rose boards one, Cal tells Jack the arrangement is only for himself. As her boat lowers, Rose decides that she cannot leave Jack and jumps back on board. Cal takes his butler's pistol and chases Rose and Jack into the flooding first class dining saloon.

After using up his ammunition, Cal realizes he gave his coat and consequently the necklace to Rose. He later boards a collapsible lifeboat by carrying a lost child. After braving several obstacles, Jack and Rose return to the boat deck. All the lifeboats have departed and passengers are falling to their deaths as the stern rises out of the water.

The ship breaks in half, lifting the stern into the air. Jack and Rose ride it into the ocean and he helps her onto a wooden panel only buoyant enough for one person. Holding the edge, he assures her that she will die an old woman, warm in her bed. He dies of hypothermia but she is saved. With Rose hiding from Cal en route, the RMS Carpathia takes the survivors to New York. There she gives her name as Rose Dawson.

She later learns that Cal committed suicide after losing everything in the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Lovett abandons his search after hearing Rose's story. Alone on the stern of the Keldysh, Rose takes out the Heart of the Oceanin her possession all alongand drops it into the sea over the wreck site.

While she is seemingly asleep in her bed, photos on her dresser depict a life of freedom and adventure, partly inspired by Jack. A young Rose reunites with him at the ship's Grand Staircase, applauded by those who perished.

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Did you know? This was the first time the Best Song Oscar (for "My Heart Will Go On") was won by a non-musical Best Picture winner. Best Song Oscar had been won by Best Picture winner only twice before (Going My Way and Gigi, both musicals). Read More

Continuity When Rose is look for help to free Jack from the handcuffs. She is pulled in the wrong direction by a crew member. She gets frustrated and punches the crew member causing a bloody nose. Even before he grabs his nose it is shown he has blood on his fingers already.

Continuity Rose swims off the door to the dead officer to take the whistle and starts alerting the rescue crew. The next shot shows the crew reacting to the alert, then the next shot is a closeup of Rose blowing the whistle, but she's now on the door again.

Continuity When Captain Smith orders, "Take her to sea, Mr. Murdoch - let's stretch her legs," they are standing to the right of the wheelhouse looking forward with the sun coming from their left. When Murdoch walks into the wheelhouse to carry out the order, the sun is behind him.

Continuity During the scene of the ship rising vertical immediately after it has split apart, there is a shot of the stern being pulled in by the bow, then there is a close-up shot of the deck at a 45 degree angle. It appears to not be moving (however, passengers are still sliding off), and there is no water on the hull visible.

Continuity Jack takes Rose and Molly's arms to go into dinner. They start walking, but in the next shot they are still standing apart.

Continuity The length of Rose's fingernails throughout the movie.

Continuity When the dinner party is breaking up, Cal throws the matches at Jack. Cal then passes Jack's shoulder twice as he's throwing the matches.

Continuity Young Rose's shoes are clearly off in one wide shot as she stands on the railing of the ship. As they cut to her before she turns around, when you can see her entire body, you can clearly see in two shots her toes outlined by black nylons clutching the rail, and NOT her heels as seen previously in other shots before and afterward when she slips on her gown going back over the rail to safety.

Continuity When Jack and Fabrizio first take to the bow of the ship, while dolphins are swimming along with it, they show them at the helm with the ship flying along but then on the close up of Jack looking down, his hair is stiff and unmoved, not a breath of wind, which would be impossible on a ship flying onward at sea in the afternoon.

Continuity When Rose is on deck, with Jack, looking at his sketchings, the hair around her face alternates between perfect ringlets and wind-blown straight.

Continuity The angle that the surface of the rising water has to the objects around should be nearly the same from scene to scene. Frequently one sees the ship already tipping at a high angle on the outside and in the cabins the surface of the water is still parallel to the ceiling. That could not happen while the ship remained rigid.

Continuity Jack's hair when he is dancing with Rose below decks.

Continuity As Rose and Cal begin their breakfast together on the promenade deck, Rose picks up her cup of coffee, then picks it up again when we see her from behind.

Continuity After Jack and Rose take a shortcut through the engine room to escape Cal's manservant, there is no soot on Rose's pale blue gown.

Continuity The size and shape of the clay pot Rose is making.

Continuity The last watertight door that is shown is at first pale, then suddenly it gets dark, and it goes pale again when it closes.

Continuity In the scene with Jack and Rose having sex in the car, the pass-through window between the seats through which Rose pulls Jack is open when he goes through it, and then in the next shot is closed without ever seeing him close it.

Continuity The safe that was opened on deck was much bigger than the one shown being used eighty years earlier.

Continuity When Jack is held prisoner in the Master-at-Arms' office you can see from time to time in the background a two-berth room. The top berth is neatly kept but later on even though Jack is alone and handcuffed and Rose in the two occasions she comes into that office never enters that room you can see that there is a pillow lying across the bed's border.

Continuity A small sign "crew only," helps Rose to find her way to free Jack from the handcuffs. It is located on the archway of the corridor, but it was not there when Jack and Rose had come at the same spot (the elevator's hall at E deck) a few hours before fleeing from Lovejoy.

Continuity When the smokestack is falling, the back of it comes out of the water. In the scene directly after, it is still coming out of the water.

Continuity When the Titanic is in port, the sun appears to come from several different angles. Compare the following: The shadow of the crewman loading the car, the shadows of people walking up the gangplank, the shadow of the sun's rays in the steam, the shadows that Rose and family cast on the gangplank, and the sunlight on the yellow building when they first enter Titanic.

Continuity When storming out of his room claiming to be robbed, parts of Cal's bangs are hanging in front of his face but when he turns around to see the steward his hair is tucked back smoothly.

Continuity At the dinner scene and the party scene below decks that follows, Rose's gloves disappear, reappear, then disappear again.

Continuity There is a small mole on Rose's face; when she boards the ship, it is shown on one side of her face (the film was flopped), and later in the movie it jumps to the other side.

Continuity When they get Cal's safe on the deck of the Keldysh, a crewman starts to grind on the hinges. In the next scene, he is standing up, just preparing to kneel down and work on the safe.

Continuity When Rose sets the axe between the bars as she takes off her coat, the axe blade rests against two metal bars to keep it from falling into the water. The next shot showing Rose from behind now shows the axe at a completely different angle with the blade positioned against only one metal bar.

Continuity During Jack and Rose's trip on the deck to the bow right before the sinking, she is wearing flat shoes. In the water, laying on the furniture (as Jack hangs on) she is wearing high heels.

Continuity After the "Let's stretch her legs" scene, we can see Chief Engineer Bell increasing steam pressure by turning the regulator counterclockwise. Later, during the collision with the iceberg, we can see some worker decreasing pressure by starting to turn the regulator clockwise, yet in next shot, he is turning the regulator counterclockwise, still decreasing the pressure. Several shots later, after change to reverse, Bell is increasing pressure by turning the regulator clockwise.

Continuity Paper money wad that First Officer Murdoch throws at Cal.

Continuity When Jack and Fabrizio are standing at the bow Jack is holding his arm under the rope that goes up toward the look-out. In the next cut the arm is over and in the next again it's under.

Continuity When Jack breaks down the third-class gate and frees the steerage passengers from the stairwell, you can see Tommy Ryan take Rose by the arm to get her over the fallen bench. In the next shot, he takes her arm again in the same place.

Continuity After Jack saves Rose from jumping from the stern of the ship, the make-up under Rose's left eye appears and disappears, then reappears, as does the dress she is holding in her left hand.

Continuity On the scene back into Rose's cabin, after Lovejoy slips the diamond into Jack's pocket, Jack's left hand in his trouser pocket changes from having the thumb in/out of it between shots.

Continuity When Rose and her granddaughter are at their home, their Pomeranian is brown. When Rose is being lifted out of the helicopter, and when she is in her suite unpacking, the Pomeranian is white.

Continuity When Jack and Rose first meet at the back of the ship, Rose is clearly wearing jeweled, slip-on shoes and black stockings. However, when she is lying on the deck after being rescued by Jack, she is wearing red lace up boots instead.

Continuity In the scene right after Rose and Jack are found lying on the deck, after Jack saves Rose from her attempted suicide, where Hockley, Lovejoy, and a few others have appeared to see what the commotion was about, Rose's earrings are undeniably green at every angle, so it could not have been a lighting effect. At dinner, and standing on the railing, they were black and silver, to match her necklace she previously wore.

Continuity When Rose is in the lifeboat looking up at Jack the smokestack behind him is lit up, but in the next scene it isn't.

Continuity When Jack and Rose are walking on the boat deck, the sunlight changes from being on the side to being behind them.

Continuity When Cal and Rose are having breakfast Cal puts his teacup on the saucer but in the next scene he still has it in his hand.

Continuity When Murdoch tells quartermaster Hitchen to turn hard a starboard he passes behind Moody to the telegraph. In the next scene he passes Moody again.

Continuity When Jack helps Rose into the car right before they have sex, a rose flower is seen in a glass vase on the wall of the car, when she pulls Jack into the back of the car with her, the rose is gone.

Continuity When the engineers get the order to reduce the steam to the engines the wheel he is turning is black but when the chief engineer pushes him out of the way and continues to turn the wheel it is gold.

Continuity When Rose starts to climb the railing she is holding up part of her dress, but as she continues to climb the rail she isn't.

Continuity While Rose and Jack are having sex in the car, you can see Rose's hand leaving a mark on the rear window. Immediately after that, the camera moves inside the car, and it is clearly seen that the mark of the hand in the window is not only in a lower part but also in a different shape.

Continuity When Rose is in the life boat, it starts to lower. However, after Cal and Jack finish their little talk, the boat is actually higher than it was when they began.

Continuity When Jack is handcuffed to the pipes, the water levels seen through the porthole are different in each shot from the outside and inside.

Continuity When Tommy yells, "You can't keep us locked in here like animals, the ship's bloody sinking!" his right hand is grabbing on to the gate at head level. The next shot shows Tommy with his right hand down and his left hand grabbing the gate.

Continuity After the drawing is completed and Rose has dressed, she is not wearing her engagement ring. Several scenes from then until the final sinking, show her left hand devoid of the ring. However, when she is underwater after the stern has sunk, a scene shows the violent suction of the water pulling that ring off her finger and flying away in the vortex.

Continuity When Rose is standing on the back of the Titanic during her attempt to commit suicide her left hand changes from holding up her dress to just holding onto the railing.

Continuity In the beginning of the movie when the elderly Rose is placing her photographs, she places them facing her bed. Later at the end of the movie, while she is asleep, it is clear the the photographs are arranged away from her bed.

Continuity When Officer Moody takes the call from the lookouts warning about the iceberg ahead, the clock reads 11.40pm. Four minutes later when Captain Smith arrives on the bridge, the clock still reads 11.40pm, even though four minutes have passed.

Continuity At the beginning of the film, when old Rose is looking at the drawing, she says that she only wore The Heart of the Ocean that one time ("it was dreadfully heavy") but she tried it on it earlier when Hockley first showed it to her.

Continuity When Rose breaks the glass to get the fire ax, all of the glass falls out. In the next shot, she reaches in for the ax and most of the glass is still in the frame.

Continuity When Rose climbs over the railing to kill herself by jumping off the back of the ship, she has the black lace piece to her dress in her hands, but in the next shot, it's not.

Continuity After Ruth and the Countess get up to avoid Molly Brown, Ismay is talking to the Captain about ordering more speed, he folds the note in his hands twice.

Continuity Old Rose's hands on the butterfly clip change position in between shots.

Continuity Brock's position on the picture of the Heart of the Ocean necklace change position in between shots.

Continuity When Jack asks Rose to dance, Rose's hands change position from in her lap to on the table in between shots.

Continuity When Bobby tells Brock "Trust me, you want to take this call" Bobby's hand jumps from Brock's shoulder in between shots.

Continuity When Lovejoy tells Jack "I believe this ship may sink" Lovejoy's hands on his gun change position in between shots.

Continuity When Jack and Rose are spitting over the side before dinner they are on the port side of the ship and the sun is setting almost directly in front of them. The ship would have to be going northwest for this to happen instead of the southwest course it should be on.

Continuity After Rose gets out of the car, Mr. Lovejoy is in another car opening the door for Ruth and she gets out. When Cal says "and far more luxurious", Ruth is seen exiting the car again.

Continuity When Jack sees Rose for the first time on deck, the scar next to his right eye is now on his left - a sign that the image was flopped.

Continuity After the iceberg collision, there is a scene where Thomas Andrews passes worried by the Countess with the ship's schematics in his hands. Immediately after this scene, the ship is shown. This supposedly is happening a few minutes after the collision, so the ship must have its head slightly down in the water. In that shot, the ship's front is recognizable and it can be seen that its tail is slightly down, not its head.

Continuity In the beginning of the movie, when the old Rose is getting off the helicopter, she is wearing a specific pair of earrings. In the next few scenes, the earrings change. After the story unfolds, they're changed back to the original pair in the scenes where she appears, including the end.

Continuity When Murdoch orders "full astern", he moves the engine order telegraph three times before he sets it on the desired speed. Three rings on the order telegraph indicates to the engine crew that an urgent speed change is needed, rather than the usual single ring. When the camera cuts to the engine room, only one ring is heard.

Miscellaneous "Eternal Father Strong To Save" is sung during the worship service. While Robert Nelson Spencer wrote two verses in 1937, the lines quoted in the film were quoted in a book published in 1921 and were probably written much earlier.

Miscellaneous Some artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Titanic included a number made of paper, which were saved by being in leather bags or such; it is therefore possible for Jack's sketch of Rose to have survived as shown.

Miscellaneous The tugs that assisted the Titanic away from the Southampton dock did belong to the company known today as the Red Funnel Line, but they had not yet adopted that nickname or colour scheme. As shown in the film, the actual tugs had beige funnels.

Miscellaneous Although the Titanic's fourth smokestack was not an exhaust avenue for the ship's engines, it was used as an outlet for the Titanic's massive kitchen. Since the Titanic used coal stoves, some smoke would have been coming out of the fourth smokestack. In one of the flyovers of the ship, it is possible to see that most of the top of the fourth smokestack is sealed.

Miscellaneous It is often claimed that there is a tattoo visible on Rose's arm when she attempts suicide. It is actually a moon-shaped black dot - some embellishment that has come loose from her robe, clearly visible in closer shots.

Miscellaneous Although her fingers partially obscure it, the coin that Rose gives to Jack is generally agreed to be a Barber dime, minted 1892-1916, not a modern dime as some viewers have incorrectly asserted. The Barber dime is distinctive because the portrait of Liberty on the head of the coin faces the right, not the left.

The credits explain that some dramatic license has been taken; this is apparent with several minor characters. For example, Benjamin Guggenheim's mistress, Madame Aubert, never dined in the First-Class Dining Salon; she took all of her meals in the a-la-carte restaurant on B Deck.

Miscellaneous When Rose is considering jumping off the ship at the beginning of the movie, she is not wearing the necklace she had on at dinner. Her hair is also different. In fact, there was a scene that was cut from the movie where Rose runs back to the parlor suite, tears off her necklace, lets her hair down, and in a fit of rage, destroys some of the items in her bedroom before running to the stern to attempt suicide.

Miscellaneous The diamond in the film, "Le Coeur de la Mer", is supposed to be a diamond owned by Louis XVI and lost during the French Revolution, which Lovett also refers to as the "Blue Diamond of the Crown". In one early scene Lovett mentions to Rose that "today it would be worth more than the Hope Diamond". Since that 56 ct. heart-shaped diamond is believed to be the source of the 45.5 ct. oval Hope Diamond, that makes sense. Further, since the source of the Hope Diamond is not certain, it's an acceptable fiction that it came from somewhere else and that the stone we see is the original, heart-shaped diamond.

Miscellaneous All accounts of the sinking by survivors report that the lights went out, flickered back on for a second, then went out for good before the ship broke in two, all of which is correctly shown in the movie. In fact, many survivors disputed that the ship broke apart at all before sinking. Naturally when the lights go out that quickly not everyone's eyes adjusted to the dark fast enough. Even though it has since been proven that the ship did break before sinking, one would imagine that there would be no room for dispute if the lights had stayed on until the ship broke.

Miscellaneous When the ship is shown at night, there appears to be a smaller version of the ship along side it. In fact, this is a tender ship.

Miscellaneous By 1912 color photography was beginning to pass beyond the experimental stage; the Autochrome plate, for instance, had been introduced in 1907. While the general public, or even most photographers, would still hardly be likely to take pictures in color, the owner of the fabulous Heart of the Ocean diamond might well have wanted to record it for posterity, cost no object, in all its colorful glory.

Miscellaneous The painting by Norman Wilkinson in the first class smoking room is actually an exact reproduction of "Plymouth Harbour," which went down on the Titanic, and not the Olympic's "Approach to the New World," a depiction of New York harbor. A few years back, black and white sketches of "Plymouth Harbour" were found and an exact copy was painted by his son for the Southampton Maritime Museum. The Museum confirms that the picture as shown is an accurate copy.

Miscellaneous During the overhead shot of the Titanic splitting in half, a victim slides upwards. If the person was sliding down as the ship broke, their momentum would allow them to keep sliding.

Miscellaneous There were a number of roller coasters in Santa Monica, as early as 1904; in any case, Jack tends to embellish his stories.

Miscellaneous When Brock is filming from the inside of the submarine, he's supposed to be well under water, by the wreck of the Titanic. The light outside the window is coming from the submersible's outside lights.

Miscellaneous The paintings shown in Rose's cabin, apparently by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, andEdgar Degas, have been the subject of much criticism, supposedly because these paintings are originals that never traveled on Titanic, or because they were too large to fit aboard the ship. In truth, the paintings are just imitations of the styles of each artist. The painting by Picasso is not the famed Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, but merely a painting in the same style.

Miscellaneous When Murdoch finishes loading one of the lifeboats he says "Ready on the left", and "lower away" but doesn't say "Ready on the right". When lowering a lifeboat the officer would say "Ready on the left" then "Ready on the right" and finally "Lower away". However, just after he calls "Ready on the left", he turns and sees Bruce Ismay in the lifeboat. Obviously stunned, he pauses before resigning himself to continue, and simply calls "Lower away".

Miscellaneous When the ship is bearing down on the iceberg, the officer orders the helmsman to put the helm hard to starboard and later hard to port. In each case the helmsman appears to do exactly the opposite. However, prior to the advent and mass popularity of the automobile, a ship's wheel was rigged such that to turn the ship left (port), the wheel was turned clockwise (or as we would consider it, to the right). It was only after a generation of drivers had grown up driving cars that the shipping industry began rigging their wheels to conform.

Miscellaneous When Rose and Jack meet up before the first class dinner, Jack kisses Rose's hand and says, "I saw that on a nickelodeon once and I always wanted to do it." He is referring not to the TV company (created in 1977 under the name Pinwheel) but to a type of 5-cent movie common in that era.

Miscellaneous At the beginning of the movie it is not logically revealed how the expedition crew of Brock Lovett was able to recover the safe of Cal Hockley. The safe was found in a remote and highly inaccessible area of the ship by an underwater robot which could hardly lift some wood which covered the safe. Therefore it is hard to believe they they were able to pull that heavy safe out of the Titanic.

Factual Mistake The Titanic's middle propeller was powered by a Parsons steam turbine, which ran off expelled steam from the two main reciprocating engines. This meant that the turbine could only be run when a full head of steam had been generated. It would not and could not be used for maneuvering in port. Hence, the middle propeller would have been stationary when starting away from the dock.

Factual Mistake The reciprocating engines were controlled from a platform between the two engines about midway between the floor and the top of the cylinders, not from the engine room floor. Even if the engines were controlled from the floor level the controls would have been at the opposite end of the engines since we are looking at the aft end of the engines, and the boiler rooms are forward of the reciprocating engine room. Also, it would have been quite impossible to see those engines from the vantage point we are given since the watertight bulkhead between the reciprocating engine room and turbine engine room would prevent us from being able to stand back far enough.

In overhead shots of the forecastle deck, the skylight for the crew's galley can be seen located to starboard. This skylight was actually on the port side.

Factual Mistake There was no door between boiler room 6 and the cargo area (and no access to any but authorized crew). If there had been a door, it would have entered the third cargo area aft, not the one where the Renault was stored.

Factual Mistake Professional radio operators hold the key with the thumb and two fingers, rather than tapping on it as shown. Tapping would produce a bad "fist" (the Morse code equivalent of a harsh voice).

Factual Mistake Jack is supposedly held prisoner in the Master-at-Arms' office, which is depicted as having a porthole. On the Titanic, this room was an interior room and hence would have no portholes.

Factual Mistake The crew of lifeboat #14 didn't have flashlights to use when looking for survivors in the water. James Cameron knew this when making the film, but used the flashlights to provide lighting.

Factual Mistake First Officer Murdoch is shown lowering Collapsible C lifeboat (the one with Ismay in it). It was actually Chief Officer Wilde who lowered this boat.

Factual Mistake Captain Smith announces that he has ordered the last remaining unlit boilers lit. Actually only 24 of the 29 boilers were ever lit. The full-speed test (all boilers lit) was to have taken place on Monday, the 15th.

Factual Mistake In several scenes when the ship's officers are outdoors on the cold night of the sinking, the rank insignia has the executive curl (the semi-circle atop one or more stripes indicating the rank) going astern (the wrong way). This would result in great embarrassment for the officers involved.

Factual Mistake The Titanic is shown to be at Southampton docks in brilliant sunshine. Yet, photographs from the actual event seem to show the sky overcast.

Factual Mistake All of the double doors on D deck, the ones passengers pass through to the elevators and to the first class dining room, are incorrect. The real ones on the Titanic all had glass and the handles were further up in the middle, attached to rectangular metal plates.

Factual Mistake The stern section, when visible during the Titanic's launch, is missing a porthole in the white section near the railing.

Factual Mistake In the scene when the iceberg passes the promenade deck, passengers are looking at the iceberg. You can see in the back the rear davit is out. At this point the only davits out were the front davits.

Factual Mistake Shots of the Titanic steaming at night and just prior to hitting the iceberg show a great deal of lights on the foredeck and from the cabin windows on the front of the ship facing the foredeck. In reality, Atlantic liners would not have so much light showing forward of the bridge as the glare would interfere with navigation at night.

Factual Mistake When the ship hits the iceberg, water is seen entering the ship's garage on E deck. E deck was not immediately flooded, as it was two decks above the point of collision.

Factual Mistake When Rose boards Titanic, the entrance vestibule is shown with a pair of wooden doors. When James Cameron visited the wreck two years after filming ended, he discovered that the doors were in fact inaccurately portrayed in the film.

Factual Mistake Passengers were not allowed at the forecastle head, or bow. The sign that declared "Passengers Not Allowed Beyond This Point" was mounted on the leeward side of the forward breakwater (both port and starboard), and was missing in the film.

Factual Mistake When the ship hits the iceberg, water is seen entering the ship's garage on E deck. In reality, E deck was not immediately flooded, as it was two decks above the point of collision.

Factual Mistake When the Titanic hits the iceberg, Thomas Andrews is shown to be in his room going over blueprints and clearly notices that something has happened. Although it is true that Andrews was in his room working on improvements for the ship when the collision occurred, he did not actually feel it himself; he was actually summoned by the crew.

Factual Mistake Rose runs into Andrews, who gives her directions on how to reach Jack. The directions he gives her does not correspond to the real deck plan on RMS Titanic; it would have led her to nowhere rather then the Master-at-Arms' office.

Factual Mistake There are many minute contradictions of history, both in events and in the technical details of the ship. This film is prey to a large number of factual errors due to the large volume of documentary evidence from the actual event.

Factual Mistake The closing credits state that Titanic was "Filmed in Panavision". This is incorrect. It was filmed using the Super 35 process that James Cameron has used for all of his movies and not using the Panavision anamorphic wide screen process. It was filmed, however, with Panavision cameras.

Factual Mistake When the dock workers at Southampton cast off Titanic's mooring lines, the heaving lines are still attached to her mooring lines. The smaller heaving lines are used only to pull a ship's larger mooring lines down to the dock when the ship arrives. Then, only the ship's mooring lines are fastened to the dock or are cast off when she departs.

Factual Mistake When the band starts playing "Nearer My God To Thee" at the ships final moment, they are playing the American version "Bethany". Considering the Titanic was a British vessel containing mostly British crew, it is extremely unlikely the band would know - or use - an Americanized tune. Instead they would have likely used the British version "Horbury".

Factual Mistake In the film, the Palm Court's wicker furniture is tan, but on the real Titanic (and seen in many archival photos), it was actually white. Also, the tables are circular (Olympic only), but on Titanic, they were square. Lastly, the walls are seen bare, but on Titanic, each wall had real climbing ivy.

Factual Mistake The blue diamond "Le Coeur de la Mer" is stated as having 56 carats which would put its weight at 56 * 0.2 = 11.2 grams which would be much too low for a diamond this size.

Factual Mistake The Titanic's (and Olympic's) First Class Dining Saloon did not have table lamps.

Factual Mistake In the first shot of the lifeboats being lowered during the sinking, one of the boats has "S.S. TITANIC" painted on it's bow. Although the ship was designated as "R.M.S. TITANIC" (for Royal Mail Steamship or Steamer) the lifeboats were indeed marked as "S.S. TITANIC", and several plaques taken from the lifeboats after the disaster have been saved as souvenirs.

Factual Mistake When the water is shown covering the clock on the Grand Staircase it is level with the 9-and-3 positions. With the angle the ship would have been as it flooded the water it would have been at either 1-and-7 or 2-and-8.

Factual Mistake When old Rose is about to start her story, she looks at videotape of the fireplace on the monitor. In the shot is "Snoop Dog", the submersible. "Duncan", the second submersible, was exploring another part of the wreck and wouldn't have been able to take that shot. It's actually a shot from the movie, having been used just before the discovery of the safe.

Factual Mistake An Airedale is shown on the ship in Southampton before the Hockley party enters the doorway. The Airedale belonged to John Jacob Astor who boarded the ship at Cherbourg France later in the day.

Factual Mistake The orchestra plays the American music to "Nearer my God to Thee", however, most Titanic experts believe the last song the orchestra played was "Songe D'Autumne", or better known as "Autumn".

Audio/Video Mismatch While on deck, Jack asks, "Do you love the guy or not?" The shot changes to show Rose's reaction. Jack's jaw can be seen moving, as if he's asking the same question again, but he's not heard.

Audio/Video Mismatch When they find their rooms in steerage and Jack introduces himself to the Swedish men, Fab takes the top bunk. Jack turns to Fab and says "Who says you get top bunk, huh?" but his mouth never moves then or later to actually say it.

Audio/Video Mismatch When Jack throws the cigarette in the water, it disappears before it reaches to the end of the screen.

Audio/Video Mismatch As the ship is sinking, the string players walk away, but one remains. As he begins to play, two others return. One is a double bass, but the sound of a double bass is not heard within the piece.

Audio/Video Mismatch After the Titanic sinks, a lifeboat returns to look for survivors. The officer in the boat is shouting and his voice is echoing, for it to echo it would have to hit a surface and reflect back but as it is the middle of the Atlantic and there is nothing to echo back from.

Audio/Video Mismatch Second Officer Lightoller shouts, "Hold on to her! Pull her in!" when a woman ready to board a lifeboat is nearly pushed overboard, yet his mouth does not move.

Audio/Video Mismatch After the collision with the iceberg, the Captain orders all engines to be stopped. However, the telegraph bells are only heard once, meaning that the other engine would still be in full reverse, which it clearly isn't.

Audio/Video Mismatch In the church service, the pianist can be seen hitting the keys, but not moving his hands to change chords or hit any other notes.

Audio/Video Mismatch When escaping from steerage, when Tommy says if that's the way the rats are going, that's good enough for him, his mouth doesn't appear to b moving, at least not in synch with the dialogue he is heard saying.

Miscellaneous When old Rose is seated in her stateroom aboard the salvage ship with Lizzy her granddaughter and he comes in to ask if her stateroom's all right and if there's anything she'd like. She replies, "Yes, I'd like to see my drawing," and behind her on the wall you can see the large banana shaped shadow of the boom dip down for her line and up again.

Audio/Video Mismatch When Rose and Jack are on the ship as it is going down vertically, Jack says "Hold on!" about a second before his lips move.

Errors in Geography A strip of desert is visible between the dock and the Titanic when docked at Southampton.

Errors in Geography The dolphins seen in the "I'm King of the World" segment (when Jack and Fabrizio are up on the bow of the ship) are Pacific white-sided dolphins. The Titanic was in the North Atlantic.

Errors in Geography When Rose "flies" from the ship's bow, the sunlight is clearly falling almost exactly straight across the ship from left to right. On the evening of April 14, the ship had in fact turned to almost a due west course, placing the actual setting sun almost straight ahead and slightly to the right.

Errors in Geography While walking on the deck the day after Jack rescues Rose, just before she shows him her ring, if you look over the rail of the ship you can see waves coming into shore.

Errors in Geography An overhead shot of the ship on its way to New York shows the shadows of the masts falling to the left, but the sun is shining from the left (=south) also.

Character Error During the last scene at the Grand Staircase, after Jack turns around and smiles at Rose, he keeps looking at the camera after it turns to reveal Rose.

Character Error At the beginning of the movie, when Jack is playing poker with Fabrizzio and 2 others, Fabrizzio turns over his hand and says he has nothing ("niente"). However, about 45 seconds earlier, his cards can be seen (when he says "Jack, you are pazzo. You bet everything we have"). He has two Sixes in his hand, which would give him a Pair.

Character Error When Lewis Bodine is talking about the moment the iceberg hit the Titanic he states that it "punched holes like Morse code...below the water line" in the hull; however, this is not the case. There were many possible factors in the sinking but the closest to Bodine's statement is that when the iceberg hit, it 'popped' the rivets, causing the hull to open and let the water in.

Trivia:

A 3D version of Titanic, released on April 4, 2012.

When Titanic was re-released in 3D in the year 2012, James Cameron changed one shot in the film where Rose lays on driftwood and stares at the stars, after he received an email from Neil DeGrasse Tyson stating that the stars she would have seen on that particular night and time was not accurate.

The scale model of the under water wrecked ship, has been on display in the Titanic museum in Branson, MO for a number of years. In August 2011, it will be removed and taken back to Hollywood where it is to be used to film the new Titanic 3-D movie.

Upon sighting the iceberg, the ship's officers shout 'Hard a starboard' at the helmsman, but the helmsman turns the wheel to port. The ship did actually alter course to port and then Murdoch attempted to 'starboard the ship' to swing the stern clear of the iceberg. Titanic's steering followed the old British practice (derived from sailing ships) that turning the wheel to starboard would make the rudder and thus the ship turn to port. Conversly, turning the wheel to port as the helmsman is shown doing would make the ship turn to starboard.

The highest-grossing film ever to win the Best Picture Academy Award, and one of only two Best Pictures to gross over $1 billion (the other being The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King).

There was a scene storyboarded, in which Rose was to walk off the Carpathia and disappear into the crowds. Since the budget had run so high, however, James Cameronhad to cut this scene due to the expense of having almost 1,000 extras brought to New York to film just 30-seconds.

During the lunch scene, the line "Freud? Who is he? Is he a passenger?" was an ad lib byJonathan Hyde.

David Warner and Billy Zane both starred in Twin Peaks: Episode #2.16, although their characters do not interact.

The line, "I'd rather be his whore than your wife", was originally spoken by Peggy Liptonas Norma Jennings in Twin Peaks: Episode #2.16.

Barbra Streisand was considered for the role of Molly Brown.

Adrian Paul was considered for the role of Caledon 'Cal' Hockley. As was Jack Davenport, but he was deemed too young.

James Cameron regular Jenette Goldstein appears in period costume here. Ironically, she had showed up in period costume at the auditions for Aliens, her first movie with Cameron, thinking it was a period movie.

The opening was originally going to be an Irishman painting the word 'Titanic'. During that same scene, it is not, as believed by some, a real tape from her departure in 1912.James Cameron wanted to use actual footage, but at the time there was none. So he attempted to create what he thought took place. However after the movie was released, some actual footage was discovered.

In a 2012 interview on MTV News, shortly before the movie was re-released in 3D, Kate Winslet admitted that she strongly dislikes the song "My Heart Will Go On," which was recorded by Céline Dion and prominently included in the film. She said about it, "I wish I could say, 'Oh listen, everybody! It's the Celine Dion song!' But I don't. I just have to sit there, you know, kind of straight-faced with a massive internal eye roll... It haunts me."

In 2012, Entertainment Weekly reported that when the movie was re-released in 3D, director James Cameron didn't update any effects or fix any errors except one. When astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium, first saw the movie in its original theatrical release, he noticed that the configuration of stars in the night sky during Rose's night in the water bore no resemblance to what the sky really looked like over that place on that night (and, in fact, the same incorrect set of stars had just been duplicated in post-production). Tyson wrote a letter to James Cameron explaining the error; several years later, upon meeting Cameron in person, Tyson repeated his complaint; and then at an event that occurred at the Hayden Planetarium, Tyson spoke about it to Cameron a third time. Finally, a post-production technician working on the re-release called Tyson and asked him to provide a picture of what the sky really would have looked like, and Tyson's star image was used to fix that shot. Ironically, before the shot was fixed, the stars were arranged to look like the Heart of the Ocean necklace.

When old Rose is looking at her drawing in the water, her original line was supposed to be "Wasn't I a hot number?", but both James Cameron and Gloria Stuart felt that this line was out of the character for Rose, so it was changed to the one in the final film.

Jack mentions to Astor that he is of the "Chippewa Falls Dawsons". This is the nearest city to Lake Wissota which he mentions earlier, when he is saving Rose, as a lake near his childhood home. His childhood home would most likely be Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, United States.

Jack Dawson is depicted as both one of the last passengers to board the Titanic as well as one of the last people to go into the ocean when the ship finally sinks.

First winner of the Best Picture Academy Award to be converted to the 3D format after its original 2D release.

David Warner, who played Spicer Lovejoy, also played real life survivor Laurence Beesley in the 1987 TV movie S.O.S. Titanic.

James Cameron pitched the film to 20th Century Fox with the single line of "Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic."

Jennifer Aniston was considered for the role of Rose DeWitt Bukater.

WILHELM SCREAM: After the Titanic hits the iceberg, water splashes inside the ship, hitting the crew members.

During the sinking scene, the priest reciting a passage from the Bible did exist on the Titanic. He is believed to be Father Byles of second class.

Jeremy Sisto screen tested opposite Kate Winslet for the role of Jack Dawson.

Thomas Andrews was originally suppose to appear during the "King of the World" scene, but was removed because he hadn't yet been introduced.

During the corset scene, it is originally Rose who is suppose to be tightening her mother's corset. However, James Cameron and the actresses felt that the scene had much more of an effect of Rose being in the corset.

A 2012 episode of MythBusters: Titanic Survival tested whether or not Jack could have joined Rose on the floating door without submerging it and therefore survive the story. As it turned out, he could have, particularly if they strapped Rose's life vest underneath the door to add buoyancy. James Cameron, who appeared on the episode, maintained that Jack needed to die for thematic reasons, but conceded that he could have used a smaller door to make it more plausible.

Tom Cruise was considered for the role of Jack Dawson.

James Cameron, being a certified scuba diver, has admitted that the reason why he wanted to make a movie about "a big ship that sinks" was because he just wanted to dive to the real wreck of the Titanic.

During the 3rd Class party scene, Jack and Rose try to dance the Polka, with neither one really knowing the steps. The Polka is the official state dance of Wisconsin, where Jack is from.

At the end, when Rose meets with Jack again, the grand staircase clock says "2:20" which is the time of when Titanic slipped under the Atlantic.

Upon discovering the sketch of young Rose, Brock Lovett says "I'll be goddamned". These were the exact words of Dr. Robert Ballard upon his discovery of the Titanic wreck.

Jack mentions he is from Chippawa Falls, Wisconsin. James Cameron grew up in a town called Chippawa in Ontario, Canada.

James Cameron said his original pitch for the film consisted of his showing the Fox studio executives a book full of famous Titanic paintings by Ken Marschall and said "This ship... Romeo and Juliet."

In the movie, exactly 37 seconds pass between the lookouts warning and the actual collision with the iceberg - the same amount of time it took in real life.

James Cameron: Just below Lovejoy during the below decks party, with a gray beard.

James Cameron: Standing behind Fabrizio on the deck waiting for a lifeboat when Murdoch starts shooting.

James Cameron: The shoe at the beginning, Rose's feet while climbing the rail, Jack's feet when taking off his shoes, Rose's and Jack's feet while dancing.

James Cameron: Several dissolves between the Titanic on the seabed to the Titanic of the past, and the dissolve from the young to the old Rose.

James Cameron: Humanity's arrogance and over-reliance on technology, leading to disaster.

When Rose is afloat on the wood looking up at the stars, there is a vague image of the necklace. It is outlined by brighter stars shaping the heart loosely, and a few bright stars shaping the chain. This shot is omitted in the 3D re-release, in which it is replaced with a shot of how the stars really looked like in 1912.

Rose only says "I love you" to Jack once while they are both shivering in the water. Jack never says it, although he mentions what he loves about her (see Quotes).

Danny Nucci (Fabrizio) stated that there were several different versions of his death that were scripted. One of them would have involved him swimming up to Cal's swamped lifeboat and begging to be let aboard, saying it was his destiny to go to America. At that point Cal was supposed to have knocked him unconscious with his oar and tell him "IT'S THAT WAY!"

As originally scripted, Cal was intended to actually find Rose aboard the Carpathia after the sinking. Rose was to tell him to let her mother know that she died on the Titanic, and that he would leave her alone for the rest of her life.

Cal's snide comments notwithstanding, Rose intuitively has quite an eye for art. She bought herself a canvas considered one of the most influential paintings of the 20th century: Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Ladies of Avignon). During the sinking, it is shown floating in Rose's cabin -but actually it has been on exhibit safe and dry for decades at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (see Goofs).

Considerable controversy arose when James Cameron depicted the suicide of First Officer Murdoch. While Cameron did apologize to Murdoch's family members for the upset the scene caused them, he still kept the shot in the film, stating simply that while no one could prove that it did happen, neither could anyone prove that it didn't. Murdoch's body was never recovered, but it is generally agreed that he either froze to death in the water or went down with the ship.

When we last see Cal's bodyguard Lovejoy in the finished film, he is hanging onto the side rail of the Titanic as it is breaking in half, with the side of his head appearing quite bloody. A scene had been cut that explains how Lovejoy got to look so bloodied and disheveled. The existing scene where Cal chases Jack and Rose down the Grand Staircase, shooting at them and then runs out of bullets (prior to realizing he put his coat which contains the diamond on Rose), was actually supposed to continue, where Cal hands Lovejoy the gun and tells him that if he gets the diamond from Rose, he can keep it. Lovejoy then loads the gun and goes hunting for them in the dining room. Cameron states on the 3-Disc Special Edition DVD that includes the scene, that it was not only considered much too long, but preview audiences didn't buy the fact that Lovejoy turns into a murderous villain trying to get a diamond from Jack and Rose as the ship is sinking (and they're ALL liable to die anyway). Lovejoy's head gets bloodied when Jack catches him off guard, crashes Lovejoy's head through a glass window and roughs him up a bit before he and Rose run away.

Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet died by committing suicide in the films they each did just prior to Titanic (DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet and Winslet in Hamlet - both Shakespeare adaptations, nonetheless)

When Mr. Ismay is being lowered down in one of the lifeboats, the band is playing Orpheus from the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descended to Hell to rescue Eurydice, his wife from a life of misery in the underworld. Since the camera shows Ismay being lowered at the time, its almost like he's descending into his own personal Hell. Because if it weren't for his insistence on speeding up, the Titanic never would have hit the iceberg. So he gets to watch it sink while the lifeboat slowly sails away.

The photos Old Rose has on her dresser all show things Jack said she would do with her life. Like riding a horse with both legs either side.

In order to visit Rose as she's touring the bridge with Thomas Andrews and Cal on the day of the sinking, Jack steals a coat and hat belonging to a first class passenger named A.L. Ryerson. A.L. Ryerson (Arthur Larned Ryerson) was a real 1st class Titanic passenger who boarded in Cherbourg with his wife Mrs. Emily Maria Ryerson and three of their five children including their son John Borie Ryerson. The Ryerson's stayed in staterooms B57, 63, and 66 and the family purchased their tickets from the White Star Line for a total of 262 pounds 7 shillings. The scene in which Jack steal's the coat depicts a famous picture of a father and his young son playing with a top on Titanic's deck. The scene in the movie takes place on April 14, 1912, the day of the sinking. The original photo however was taken on the day of the sailing, and it's generally accepted that it was the Spedden who appear in the picture. Originally from Harford, PA the Ryersons were traveling aboard the Titanic to Cooperstown, NY. Emily and the children were rescued aboard life boat 4, but Arthur perished in the sinking.

An alternative ending was shot, in which old Rose shows Brock the diamond before she throws it into the sea. James Cameron didn't use it, because it took away too much closure for the character of Rose.

When the stern of the ship is vertical, Chief Baker Joughin (Liam Tuohy, in white) is drinking from a flask. Joughin was one of few to survive the freezing water, allegedly due to the alcohol (but this is disputed as unlikely since alcohol is known to accelerate hypothermia, not to help resist cold). The scene was added after Liam showed the flask to James Cameron explaining that it was a family heirloom as old as the Titanic itself.

The Swedish phrases that Sven and his buddy exchange during the card game translate into the following: "I can't believe you bet our tickets!". "Shut up!". When grabbing Jack by the throat: "You damn weasel!". And after punching his buddy in the face: "You damn idiot! What the hell are we gonna do? I'm gonna kill you!".

One of the Swedes in the beginning of the film, Erik Holland, is really Norwegian, and currently works as a doorman at a nightclub in Stavanger, Norway. The other, Jari Kinnunen, is an actor from Finland. His Swedish is so heavily accented as to be incomprehensible to Swedes.

Was #1 at the U.S. box office for a record fifteen consecutive weeks, from 19 December 1997 to 2 April 1998.

Dolores O'Riordan was asked to both act in and compose music for the movie, but refused both offers due to the birth of her son.

The hands seen sketching Rose are not Leonardo DiCaprio's, but director James Cameron's. In post-production, Cameron, who is left-handed, mirror-imaged the sketching shots so the artist would be appear to be right-handed, like DiCaprio.

Was the first film to be filmed at Fox Studios Baja.

The car in which Jack and Rose make love was a Renault owned by the Carter family.

The character of Rose is partially based on California artist Beatrice Wood, who died in 1998 at the age of 105.

The elderly couple seen hugging on the bed while water floods their room are the owners of Macy's department store in New York; Ida and Isidor Strauss, both of whom died on the Titanic. Ida was offered a seat on a lifeboat but refused so that she could stay with her husband saying, "As we have lived together, so we shall die together." There was a scene filmed that depicted this moment but was cut from the final version.

In the movie, Jack is a 3rd class passenger on the Titanic who sneaks his way up to first class with the hopes of never getting caught. In the real disaster in 1912, Third Class Passenger Hilda Maria Hellström, really did sneak up to first class out of curiosity and never got caught, however she was in her 3rd class cabin when the Titanic hit an iceberg and ended up surviving the sinking by boarding one of the last lifeboats to leave, Collapsible C.

The "ale" in the below decks party was actually root beer.

Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Jason Barry both injured themselves while filming the scene in which their characters pull up a bench in third class and use it to smash a gate open. Leo threw out a shoulder, and Jason caught himself in the chin with the bench.

Jack has a line during the first class dinner scene in which he asks Molly Brown which utensils to use for what. Because of the enormous amount of time spent shooting the scene, having to provide different angles and coverage for all the cast members at the table, Leonardo DiCaprio was so worn out towards the end that he picked up a fork and asked Kathy Bates "Which one of these do I use to lobotomize myself?"

During World War I, Titanic's former Second Officer Charles Lightoller served in the Royal Navy Reserve in multiple vessels (including 3 commands). Despite his distinguished record (he would be decorated twice for valor in combat), he would never command a merchant vessel for White Star or any other shipping line. After leaving merchant service, he owned a small motor yacht for much of the rest of his life. His was one of the many private citizens who helped in the evacuation of British and Allied forces from Dunkirk, France; he and his two sons would be credited for evacuating approximately 130 Allied personnel in the dangerously overloaded vessel.

The most expensive movie to be filmed in the 20th century with a budget of $200,000,000.

Approximately 120 tons of water (triple what had been initially planned) were released for Eric Braeden's final scene. Braeden said that he has never been more terrified in his life than when he was preparing for it, as there was obviously no possible physical rehearsal.

Many of the "core extras" used for the movie took on characteristics of actual survivors. One scene where two little girls are loaded onto a lifeboat and the man says, "It's only for a little while" is based on testimony from one of the girls who survived.

When Jack sneaks onto the first-class deck in search of Rose, we see a young boy playing with a top as his father looks on. The father is played by Titanic historian and author Don Lynch, of the Titanic Historical Society, who served as a consultant on the film. The scene is based on a famous photograph taken aboard Titanic during the second leg of the voyage, between Cherbourg and Queenstown (the photographer, Fr. Francis Browne, a Jesuit priest, left the ship when it docked briefly in Ireland). The boy, 6-year-old Robert Douglas Spedden and his father Frederic O. Spedden of Tuxedo Park, NY survived the sinking, but the boy died three years later in an auto accident in Maine, one of the first recorded in the state.

The engine master says, "All ahead full," and we hear someone yell, "All ahead full!" in the background. That is actually director James Cameron's voice.

James Cameron drew all the pictures in Jack's sketchbook. In fact, the hands seen sketching Rose wearing the necklace are not Jack's but Cameron's. Since he is left-handed and Jack right-handed, the shots were mirror-imaged in post-production (see also the goofs entry).

James Cameron originally wanted Enya to compose the score for the film and even went so far as to assemble a rough edit using her music. When Enya declined, Cameron hiredJames Horner (who had composed the music for Cameron's previous film Aliens) to write the score. Horner stated that the tensions with Cameron were so high during post-production of "Aliens" that he assumed he and Cameron would never work together again. However, Cameron was so impressed with Horner's score from Braveheart that he was willing to forget the past experience. According to some accounts, Horner independently decided the film's score should be done in Enya's style. As a result, several pieces of the score sound very similar to some well-known Enya songs, in particular her theme song for Far and Away (Book of Days).

In the scene of Rose looking through the corridors for Jack, the water used was actually from the Pacific Ocean at the Baja California, Mexico set. The water was so cold that when Rose gasps when she first dives into the water, it was actually Kate Winslet's genuine reaction to the frigid ocean.

A 162-foot crane originally intended for construction and lighting was mounted on railway tracks and used for most high-level exterior shots, rather than expensive helicopters. The camera platform was big enough for a gyro-stabilized Wescam, a Steadicam and a hand-held camera. James Cameron directed atop it to be able to see the entire set.

Long shots showing the whole ship's exterior were produced by Digital Domain. A 1/20 scale model was filmed and computer-generated images of people, ocean and smoke were added. For one scene, James Cameron instructed them to "imagine we're making a commercial for White Star Lines and we need beautiful shots sweeping around the ship from a helicopter."

The rooms that Caledon Hockley, Rose DeWitt Bukater and Ruth DeWitt Bukater occupied (B52, B54 and B56) were actual rooms on the real Titanic. They were originally booked by J.P. Morgan, but he canceled before the ship sailed. Morgan had a controlling interest in International Mercantile Marine, a conglomerate that owned the White Star Line. Bruce Ismay booked the rooms following Morgan's cancellation. (See Goofs.)

Rose, in her old age, owns a Pomeranian. A Pomeranian was one of only three dogs known to have survived the disaster. As the real ship sank, a passenger freed dogs from their kennels and a survivor later recalled a French bulldog swimming in the ocean. James Cameron filmed scenes portraying the doomed animals but cut them.

The completed film ignores the freighter Californian, which had stopped for the night due to the ice hazard and was within sight of the Titanic throughout the sinking (the Californian's warning had been received and sent to the bridge but was not placed in the chartroom). An early version of the script included a scene on the Californian, but James Cameron cut out the subplot after filming it to shorten running time. The two actors in the scene on the Californian were Adam Barker as radio operator Cyril Evans and Peter John White as Third Officer Groves.

This was the first time the Best Song Oscar (for "My Heart Will Go On") was won by a non-musical Best Picture winner. Best Song Oscar had been won by Best Picture winner only twice before (Going My Way and Gigi, both musicals).

James Cameron's regular Michael Biehn was nearly cast as Cal Hockley and attended numerous meetings with Cameron to discuss the role. Rob Lowe, Rupert Everett, Peter Greene and Pierce Brosnan were also considered, though ultimately the part went to Billy Zane.

After finding out that she had to be naked in front of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winsletdecided to break the ice, and when they first met, she flashed him.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet committed to the film even before the script was written, on the basis only of a 165-page outline James Cameron had written.

Christian Bale auditioned for the role of Jack Dawson, but was turned down becauseJames Cameron didn't want two British actors playing the lead roles of two Americans.

Anthony Higgins turned down a role in this movie to do a play.

With her nomination for Best Supporting Actress at age 87, Gloria Stuart became the oldest person to ever be nominated for an Oscar.

Gwyneth Paltrow was also up for the role of Rose Dewitt Bukater but lost to Kate Winslet.

In the movie the original script included scenes of newlywed couple Daniel and Mary Marvin, Daniel being a cameraman and son of Henry Marvin, co-founder of the movie production company American Mutoscope & Biograph. Daniel Marvin died aboard the Titanic, but not without photographing some of the only existing film of the liner.

Even though the actors wore waterproof makeup for the scenes shot in the aftermath of the sinking, they constantly required touch-ups, as chemicals in the pool they shot in would wash the makeup off.

As a joke in the edit suite, James Cameron had a razor blade with a label that said "Use only if movie doesn't work".

The first film to be released on video (DVD/VHS) while it was still being shown in theaters.

Bernard Fox appeared as Lookout Frederick Fleet in A Night to Remember (uncredited) and as Col. Archibald Gracie in this film.

Harland and Wolff, the Belfast shipyard who built the Titanic in 1909, opened up their private archives to the production, sharing blueprints that were long thought lost.

All the artifacts were created from scratch by Peter Lamont's production design team to recreate the newness of everything on the ship.

For the safety of the stuntmen, most of the props were made of foam rubber.

The schedule was originally meant to last 138 days but grew to 160 - 20 days short of 6 months.

To sink the Grand Staircase into the purpose-built 5 million gallon tank, 90,000 gallons of water were dumped through it as it was lowered into the tank. Such was the volume that the staircase was ripped from its steel-reinforced foundations.

The post-sinking scenes were shot in a 350,000 gallon tank where the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder on the actors that then crystallized when exposed to water. Wax was applied to hair and clothes to create a wet look.

The original carpet manufacturers were persuaded to make an 18,000 square foot reproduction of the original weave that was on the ship.

The film contains over 100 speaking parts and over 1000 extras, all of whom needed to be dressed in lavish period costume.

Paramount had to send out replacement reels to theaters who had literally worn out their copies.

Of the special effects houses involved, VIFX were responsible for the icy, visible breath of the passengers floating in the water after the ship sank. They also worked on the engine room sequence and a lot of the workers seen therein. POP Film handled digital face replacements and matte paintings, Banned from the Ranch took care of some underwater shots, CIS Hollywood were responsible for sky replacements and bluescreen composites, whilst Digital Domain - James Cameron's own company - dealt with the bulk of the big showcase special effects.

Both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio learned how to dance the polka for the scenes set at the party in the third-class compartments.

Kate Winslet had to learn how to scuba dive in preparation for her scenes in the water.

Billy Zane was cast after James Cameron saw him in the film The Phantom.

Egg white was used for the initial spitting sequence, but petroleum jelly was used in the sequence where Rose spits on Cal.

Rose's chiffon dress which she wears for the latter part of the film was designed to look just as good wet as dry. Costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott had about 24 of them made.

This was the first film to be nominated twice for an Academy Award, for the portrayal of the same character. Kate Winslet received an Best Actress nomination for her role as Rose. Gloria Stuart received an best supporting nomination for her portrayal of the older Rose. The next time this happened was with the movie Iris, which also starred Winslet.

Most of the stuntmen in the engine room scenes were only about 5 feet tall to make the engine room look a lot bigger.

Fay Wray was originally offered the role of the older Rose but turned it down, saying, "I think to have done this film would have been a tortuous experience altogether". Hollywood legend Ann Rutherford also turned it down.

Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was asked if she would like to attend the premiere but she refused, stating that watching A Night to Remember was painful enough to watch.

The name of the band seen playing at the party in 3rd Class is Gaelic Storm.

At the end of the movie, when Rose meets Jack on the Grand Staircase, the time displayed on the clock is the same time the ship sank, at 2:20 AM.

Robert De Niro was offered the role of Captain Smith but turned it down due to a gastrointestinal infection at the time.

The most-voted-for film on IMDb that is not on the Top 250 List.

Jack's portrait of the one-legged prostitute is actually visible for two frames as he turns the page to his sketch of "Madam Bijoux". James Cameron decided not to show the portrait as he thought the audience would imagine something better.

James Cameron wrote the role of Lewis Bodine with his friend Lewis Abernathy in mind. When he couldn't find an actor to play the part, he went to Lewis and asked, essentially, if he would he play himself. Lewis replied, "If you want to f*** up your movie by casting me buddy, alright."

Lorcan Cranitch was the first choice for the role of Thomas Andrews after James Cameron was impressed with his performance as DS Jimmy Beck in "Cracker". Victor Garber was cast after Cranitch turned the role down.

Gloria Stuart who was 87 at the time of the film's release, lived to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its release at age 97. She became a real life centenarian on July 4th, 2010.

Composer James Horner said the first rough cut he saw of the film was 36 hours.

The first Best Picture Academy Award winner to be produced, directed, written, and edited by the same person (James Cameron).

In the film, Molly Brown lends Jack a tuxedo that she has most likely purchased in Europe for her son who is supposedly the same size as Jack. The real Molly Brown did indeed have a son, Larry, who was 24 at the time that the Titanic sank.

When Jack prevents Rose from committing suicide, he shares a story about how he once fell into freezing cold water while ice fishing and how it feels like "being stabbed with a thousand knives all over your body." This was an actual quote from a Titanic survivor describing the temperature of the North Atlantic water.

The piece of wooden paneling that Rose floated on after the sinking is based upon a genuine artifact that survived the sinking and is on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, though it was scaled larger to provide sufficient buoyancy as a life-raft for Rose.

The first film James Cameron ever directed that did not include or mention nuclear weapons.

At the TED conference in February 2010, James Cameron stated: "Secretly, what I wanted to do was I wanted to dive to the real wreck of 'Titanic'. And that's why I made the movie". The statement brought laughter and applause.

Several scenes show all four funnels smoking but the smoke from the fourth funnel is fewer and cleaner. The White Star Lines competitors all had four and they did not want to lose face. So the fourth funnel was designed as additional storage space that was used on the first trip for livestock and to provide ventilation.

James Cameron met his fifth wife, Suzy Amis, on the set of this film. Of all his marriages, theirs has lasted the longest.

James Cameron supervised all of the underwater shots of the Titanic himself.

Despite the fact that this was filmed in Super 35, "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.

James Cameron instructed the actors playing the officers to keep order amongst the extras in the sinking scenes. Jonny Phillips ad-libbed the moment when he whips around with the gun and shouts "keep back, or I'll shoot you all like dogs!" After the take, James Cameron ran up to him and told him it was great and to do it again, and Phillips asked "What did I say?", having been too caught up in the moment to realize what he was doing.

Tom Wilkinson was considered for the role of Lovejoy, which eventually went to David Warner. Wilkinson went on to do The Full Monty, which became one of Titanic's contenders at the Oscars next year.

Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Jodie Foster, Cameron Diaz and Sharon Stone were all considered for the role of Rose.

The film was re-released on April 6, 2012 in 2D, RealD 3D and IMAX 3D to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sailing and sinking of the ship and of the foundation of Paramount Pictures.

Rufus Sewell and Jason Isaacs were both considered for the role of Cal.

When James Cameron decided to include real footage of the Titanic's remains on the seabed, he did not want to simply shoot from inside a submersible as had been done for the IMAX documentary Titanica. To allow filming from outside the sub, Cameron's brotherMike Cameron and Panavision developed a deep-sea camera system capable of withstanding the 400 atmospheres of pressure at that depth.

The deep-sea camera held only 12 minutes' worth of film, but each dive took many hours. To make the best use of his resources, James Cameron had a 1/33 scale model of the wreck constructed and used it to rehearse each dive. The Russian sub operators would walk around the model ship holding model subs in their hands as Cameron explained the shots he wanted.

12 dives were necessary. On the last two dives, shots were taken by sending a remotely operated vehicle into the wreck; James Cameron had intended using this device only as a prop.

James Cameron went on the dives to the real Titanic himself, and found it an overwhelming emotional experience to actually see it. He ended up spending more time with the ship than its living passengers did.

Most of the decor on the ship was either reconstructed by or under the supervision of researchers of the White Star Line, the original company which constructed and furnished the Titanic.

When Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) is preparing to draw Rose (Kate Winslet), he tells her to "Lie on that bed, uh I mean couch." The line was scripted "Lie on that couch", but DiCaprio made an honest mistake and James Cameron liked it so much he kept it in.

In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #83 Greatest Movie of All Time. This was one of the newest entries on the list (from films which were released between 1997 and 2005).

The movie's line "I'm the king of the world!" was voted as the #4 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007. The same was voted as the #100 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).

The scenes during which Thomas Andrews chastises Second Office Charles Lightoller for sending the boats away without filling them to capacity is the only scene in the entire film in which the actors' breath was not digitally added in later.

Was the highest-grossing film in Japan until Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away opened.

The engine room scenes were partially filmed aboard the WWII ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien. Smaller railings and catwalks were installed to make the engines appear bigger.

During the sinking of the actual Titanic, there was concern that the davits might not be strong enough to lower the boats fully loaded, although they had in fact been tested under such a weight. The davits in the film, which can be seen flexing under the weight, were made under the same dimensions as originally designed by the White Star Line.

Production of the film began in 1995 when James Cameron shot footage of the real wreck of the Titanic. He was able to persuade 20th Century Fox to invest in the film by convincing them that the publicity surrounding a real-life dive to the wreck would be really beneficial to the production.

The staircase is not actually technically accurate being slightly larger in the film than it was in real life. This is because people in 1997 were actually a bit taller than in 1912 so they would have looked out of place on a staircase that fit the correct dimensions.

The scene in which Rose meets Jack to thank him for saving her life was improvised by the two actors at James Cameron's request, and the spitting scene was almost all ad-lib. Cameron also credits Kate Winslet with writing the heart-wrenching "This is where we first met" line during the final sinking, as well as suggesting Rose spit in Cal's face rather than (as scripted) jab him with a hairpin.

At the departure scene the extras were filmed on a green screen in a parking lot.

A model was used for the ship in the background during the poker scene so the onlookers are missing.

Most of the ocean which extras were jumping into was 3 feet deep.

When the scene where a wall of water bursts through a doorway was first shot, James Cameron said that the 40,000 gallons of water dumped into the corridor set were not enough, and asked for triple that amount. The set had to be rebuilt to stand up under the additional weight of water.

James Cameron was adamant about not including any song in the film, even over the closing credits. Composer James Horner secretly arranged with lyricist Will Jennings and singer Céline Dion to write "My Heart Will Go On" and record a demo tape which he then presented to Cameron, who responded very favorably and included the song over the closing credits. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Although a sizable publicity campaign had already been prepared, the release of the film was delayed from summer to Christmas 1997 as some elements in post-production (especially the special effects) took longer to complete than anticipated.

The "full-size" ship exterior set was constructed in a tank on a beach south of Rosarito, Baja California, Mexico. Construction started on the 85th anniversary of the real Titanic's launch - May 31, 1996 (see also A Night to Remember). To reduce costs, the number of instances of some repeated components (such as windows) was reduced, and other parts (such as the funnels and lifeboats) were built at 90% scale to produce the correct visual appearance. The set was oriented to face into the prevailing wind so that the smoke from the funnels would blow the right way.

20th Century Fox acquired 40 acres of waterfront south of Playas de Rosarito in Mexico and started building a brand new studio in May 31 1996. A 17 million gallon tank was built for the exterior of the reconstructed ship, providing 270 degrees of ocean view. The ship was built to full scale but production design removed redundant sections on the superstructure and the forward well deck so that it would fit the tank. The remaining sections were filled in digitally. The lifeboats and funnels were shrunk by 10%. While the boat deck and the A-deck were full working sets, the rest of the ship was steel plating. Contained within that was a 50 foot lifting platform for the ship to tilt during the sinking sequences, whilst towering above that was a 162 feet tall tower crane on 600 feet of railtrack. This was used as a construction, lighting and camera platform.

All the scenes where there is an exterior sunset shot were filmed at the Fox Studios set in Baja California, Mexico. The set was constructed specifically for the film, as no studio was large enough at the time to encompass the almost full-scale replication of the ship.

In the scene where the water comes crashing into the Grand Staircase room, the film makers only had one shot at it because the entire set and furnishings were going to be destroyed in the shot.

In the scene in the beginning where the captain orders full-speed ahead and the shot moves down into the boiler room, the set was really just about three boilers but the film makers had huge mirrors installed to visualize a great big long room. (In this scene you can see workers shoving in coal, and about 20 feet down the room you can see the mirror image of the workers).

The only real decks were the boat deck and A deck, with a facade of plating and lighted portholes completed only on the starboard side. So many lights were required that cinematographer 'Russell Carpenter' commented: "And you walk inside, and 70 miles of one kind of cable and 70 miles of another kind all add up to this Terry Gilliam vision of the telephone company of the 1950s."

Only the starboard side of the exterior set was completed. In the scenes portraying the ship at the Southampton dock, all shots were reversed to give the appearance of the port side of the ship, as it was actually docked in 1912. This required the painstaking construction of reversed costumes and signage to complete the illusion, which was achieved by reversing the image in post-production. One cast member joked, "I wasn't dyslexic before starting this show. I am now."

The entire set was mounted on hydraulic jacks and could be tilted up to 6° intact within the depth of the tank.

To achieve tilt angles beyond 6°, the "underwater" parts of the facade were simply detached from the set and the support structure adjusted accordingly.

After the ship breaks in half, the bow section sinks rapidly. To film this, the full-size set was in fact divided into sections. But the bow section would not sink fast enough, due to its own buoyancy and the narrow clearance between it and the tank. James Cameronobserved that once "God's 10,000,000 kW light" had risen they would have to wait until the next night, and suggested sinking the set, letting the air space between the two decks fill with water, then raising the set again and quickly sinking it before the water ran out. This worked.

The detached stern section of the full-size set was moved onto a separate tilting platform which would allow it to be rapidly turned vertical for the final phase of sinking. There were 10 takes, each requiring 100 stunt players to fall from or along the set while 1,000 extras were attached to the railings by safety harnesses.

In some shots the apparent tilt angle was steepened using various tricks such as tilting the camera and horizon.

Gloria Stuart, being only 86, was aged by makeup to play Rose at age 101. She did not find this a pleasant experience.

In preference to hiring new extras all the time and repeatedly having to fit them for clothes and coach them in proper 1912 mannerisms, a group of 150 "core extras" was hired who would stay with the picture through the entire production. They and other performers learned proper 1912 behavior in a 3-hour course from Lynne Hockney, who was also the film's choreographer. Hockney also produced a video "Titanic Etiquette: A Time Traveler's Guide", which was then left playing continuously in the wardrobe department.

On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, one or more pranksters mixed the dissociative hallucinogen PCP (angel dust) into the clam chowder served to the cast and crew. 80 people were taken ill, and more than 50 were hospitalized with hallucinations. When James Cameron realized what was happening, he forced himself to vomit before the drug took full effect. Bill Paxton felt listless for two weeks after the incident (although PCP's primary effects only last a few hours, the drug itself can take eight or more days to completely metabolize out of the body). The culprit(s) were never caught.

The name of the character Caledon Hockley derives from two small towns (Caledon and Hockley) near Orangeville, Ontario, Canada, where James Cameron's aunt and uncle live.

The bedtime story the Irish mother tells her children is the story of "The Children of Lir," an old Irish folktale about children turned into swans. That is, unless it's actually the story of "Tir na nOg, Land of eternal youth and beauty", an Irish folktale where no one ages.

At $200 million, the movie cost more than the Titanic itself. The cost to construct the ship in 1910-1912 was £1.5 million, equivalent to $7.5 million at the time and about $120 to $150 million in 1997 dollars.

After filming, the remains of the full-size set were sold as scrap metal.

That's real Beluga caviar in the first class dining room sequence. After sampling it,Jonathan Hyde said he "made an acting decision on the spot that Ismay was a big eater".

The first class lounge was deemed to be too expensive a set to be built. As a miniature of it was required for the flooding scenes, one was built to quarter of the real size. This was then greenscreened as background for the scenes where the actors were seen sitting in the lounge.

Mark Lindsay Chapman was fired and rehired twice, and survived an accident where he was struck by a boat and had to be pulled from the water.

On the set of Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio's pet lizard was run over by a truck, but with some TLC, Leo nursed him to health.

The most expensive first-class suite on the Titanic cost $4,350, the equivalent of about $75,000 today.

James Cameron forfeited his $8 million director's salary and his percentage of the gross when the studio became concerned at how much over budget the movie was running.

When James Cameron was writing the movie, he intended for the main characters Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson to be entirely fictitious. It was only after the script was finished that he discovered that there had been a real "J. Dawson" who died aboard the Titanic. This "J. Dawson" was trimmer Joseph Dawson, who had been born September 1888 in Dublin, Ireland. His body was salvaged and buried at Fairview Lawn cemetery in Nova Scotia with many other Titanic victims. Today, his grave stone (#227) is the most widely visited in the cemetery.

As is the case with many 20th Century Fox films, the film cans for the advance screening and show prints had a code name. Titanic's was "Baby's Day Out 2."

In 1998 it became the first film since 1966 to win the Oscar for Best Picture but not be nominated for its screenplay (the previous film to hold this "honor" was The Sound of Music.

Titanic is the most Oscar-nominated film (with 14 nominations) not to win in any acting categories.

Gloria Stuart was the only person who worked in the production of the film who was actually living in 1912.

This was the first movie to win both the Academy and MTV Movie Award for Best Picture.

Came eighth in the UK's Ultimate Film, in which films were placed in order of how many seats they sold at cinemas.

Early in production, this film's brief "decoy" working title was "Planet Ice".

One of three films to win a total of 11 Academy Awards, the others being Ben-Hur andThe Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

A number of scenes are arranged and in some cases scripted almost identically to similar sequences in A Night to Remember. This is particularly true of these scenes: - Thomas Andrews telling Capt. Smith the sinking is "a mathematical certainty"; - The Titanic's band preparing to depart at the end, only to turn around and regroup as Hartley begins playing "Nearer My God to Thee" by himself (though a different version of the song is used in the 1958 film). - A shot of Ismay in a lifeboat as the Titanic sinks behind him. - Thomas Andrews looking at a painting as Titanic prepares to sink - Andrews encountering a man by the Grand Staircase and telling him the ship is doomed (in this film, he tells Rose).

Was the highest grossing film in box office history with a worldwide gross of US$1.8 billion until it was surpassed by Avatar. Both films were directed by James Cameron.

The drawing Jack made entitled "Lady Bijou" wasn't really just any picture. They got the idea from an old 1933 photograph taken by Brassai called "Bijou".

The film was initially budgeted at $135,000,000, but going two months over schedule required asking Paramount Pictures to contribute an additional $65,000,000 in exchange for U.S. distribution rights.

Shay Duffin, who played the pubkeeper in England, is related to one of the original Irish workers who built the Titanic.

The original release date was 25 July 1997. When Harrison Ford, whose upcoming film, Air Force One, was scheduled to be released the same day, found out, he demanded that Paramount push the release date to a different time. Paramount, who had distributed many successful films of Ford's agreed, being worried that Ford would never do another film for them again.

After completing Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron got the idea to do the film after watching A Night to Remember. He spent five years doing research on the Titanic and its fate.

British newspapers alleged that Michael Caine refused a role.

Macaulay Culkin was considered for the role of Jack Dawson.

Reba McEntire was offered and had accepted the role of Molly Brown, but due to later schedule conflicts, had to turn it down.

Ranks first in the Academy Award Most Nominated Films List with 14 nominations, tying with All About Eve.

Kate Winslet was one of the few actors who didn't want to wear a wetsuit during the water scenes; as a result, she got pneumonia, and nearly quit the production as a result. However, Cameron persuaded her to stay.

Rose laughs during the flying scene when Jack sings "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine," as if she recalls the song from before. This is because a deleted scene shows the two characters singing it as they come out of the 3rd class dance.

The "Sinking" coat was a size 8 while the rest of the gowns were a size 4. It was so large to make Rose seem more vulnerable in the sinking scenes.

At the party in steerage, a foreign-speaking man is speaking with Rose and she says "I'm sorry, I can't understand you." The man is Swedish, probably a friend of Sven's, and he's saying to her "Talar fröken svenska?" In English that translates to "Does the miss/lady speak Swedish?" which she obviously doesn't.

Before announcing development of this film, director James Cameron shot footage of icebergs off the coast of Nova Scotia under the pretense of making a film titled "Planet Ice".

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